A cold and dark northeaster had swept together a host of straggling vapors and thin lowering clouds over the French metropolis—the course of the Seine might be traced easily among the grotesque roofs and gothic towers which at that day adorned its banks, by the gray ghostly mist which seethed up from its sluggish waters—a small fine rain was falling noiselessly and almost imperceptibly, by its own weight as it were, from the surcharged and watery atmosphere—the air was keenly cold and piercing, although the seasons had not crept far as yet beyond the confines of the summer. The trees, for there were many in the streets of Paris and still more in the fauxbourgs and gardens of the haute noblesse, were thickly covered with white rime, as were the manes and frontlets of the horses, the clothes, and hair, and eyebrows of the human beings who ventured forth in spite of the inclement weather. A sadder and more gloomy scene can scarcely be conceived than is presented by the streets of a large city in such a time as that I have attempted to describe. But this peculiar sadness was, on the day of which I write, augmented and exaggerated by the continual tolling of the great bell of St. Germain Auxerrois, replying to the iron din which arose from the gray towers of Notre Dâme. From an early hour of the day the people had been congregating in the streets and about the bridges leading to the precincts of the royal palace, the Chateau des Tournelles, which then stood—long since obliterated almost from the memory of men—upon the Isle de Paris, the greater part of which was covered then with the courts, and terraces, and gardens of that princely pile.